Eggplant Parmesan

The other day, I happened upon some eggplants at the farmers’ market. There were three different varieties all sitting next to each other looking quite fetching. The grower told me that the lighter colored ones were milder in flavor. I couldn’t decide between dark purple, light purple, and striped, so I bought some of each. My plan was to make a big pan of eggplant parmesan, and I turned to the authority on Italian cuisine, Marcella Hazan, for a recipe. There was an article about her and her husband in the New York Times last week, and a book of her memoirs, Amarcord: Marcella Remembers, will be available in October. I’m looking forward to reading it.

In Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, she wrote that eggplant parmesan, although often thought to be an Italian-American creation, is in fact made in many Italian homes. She describes the process of steeping slices of eggplant with salt and draining them in a colander. Once pressed dry, the slices are dredged in just flour and fried. Her sauce is a very simple one with tomato and basil. The fried eggplant, tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and an excellent, grated parmigiana reggiano are layered in a pan and then baked.

I had become accustomed to seeing eggplant slices dredged with flour, dipped in egg, then coated with breadcrumbs and fried for eggplant parmesan. That’s a delicious way to bread and fry just about anything. So, I thought a mere walk through flour might be lacking somehow. Actually, it was perfect. The eggplant tasted like eggplant, which is admittedly not a bold flavor, but it was clearer than it would have been with a heavier breading. The simple tomato sauce with fresh basil was also just right. I didn’t measure the cheese very carefully and probably used more than I was supposed to, but I’m like that with cheese. In the end, it was easily the best eggplant parmesan I have tasted. So, once again, simpler was better and trusting an expert like Marcella Hazan is always a good idea.

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